Author: representations

by Gigi Guizado

contemplative

mysterious path

mirror, metaphor, opportunity 

reflect on life questions

labyrinth 

After Bozeman Deaconess Spiritual Care, “Walking The Labyrinth”, 2022, Bozeman Health Deaconess Hospital 

By Attila Budaházi

2007 június 3-án délelőtt, kevéssel azután, hogy a tévé bemondta a híres színész, Darvas Iván halálát, az Orczy út egyik járdaszigetén, az Elnök utcai megállóban éppen hátat fordított az érkező villamosnak, és az még mindig igen nagy lendülettel, pusztán néhány milliméterre suhant el a vállától. A fiú egy pillanatra megdermedt a gondolattól, hogy milyen kevésen múlott.

Az évek során, időről időre eszébe jutott ez a pillanat, néha azt vizsgálta, hogy él-e még? Nem lehetséges vajon, hogy valójában elkaszálta az a villamos ott és akkor, de mivel félt belátni, hogy meghalt, még mindig úgy kalandozik valami köztes térben, mintha élne?

2019 április 7-én, vasárnap, ebédszünet után visszatért az egyik hotelszobába, hogy folytassa a takarítást. Az ebéd és a napi első cigi mindig kissé szürreális közérzetbe kényszerítették. Ezen a vasárnapon kimondottan hűvös volt és szemerkélt az eső. Az ablak résnyire nyitva volt egész ebédszünet alatt, de a fűtés ellensúlyozta a beáradó hideget. Nekifogott, hogy megvesse az ágyat, amikor egyszer csak odakintről, tökéletes tisztasággal, élesen felhangzott Tarzan összetéveszthetetlen dzsungeli kiáltása. A fiú az ablakhoz ment. Az épületek közé lelógó, az égben eltűnő liánokon, egyikről a másikra csimpaszkodva haladt Tarzan, azaz Johnny Weissmuller. És igen: az egész látvány fekete-fehér volt. 

Minden, ami aznap odáig történt, teljesen reálisnak tűnt, így egyáltalán nem volt ésszerű, hogy álmodna. Pedig ez lehetett volna az egyik teljesen kézenfekvő magyarázat és ahogy lenni szokott, következő lépésként fel lehetett volna ébredni. De nem ez történt. Megint kinézett az ablakon és most már a sötétrózsaszín égbolton egy idegen város felhőkarcolói között száguldott Tarzan, liánról liánra, egyre kétségbeesettebben. Világvége érzés futott át a fiún. Érezte, eljött az idő, színt kell vallani.  Az ajtó felé fordult, de ott nem volt ajtó már. Egy szürkén örvénylő füst-alagút tátongott helyette. 

Bárhogy erőltette, nem emlékezett rá, mikor halt meg. Most? Évekkel korábban? Nem lebbent fel a fátyol semmilyen elrejtett emlékről. Ott állt, szemben az örvénnyel, érezte, ahogy egyre nagyobb széllökések érik az arcát. 

2023 tavasza volt. A vonatablakon befújt a szél. Egy pillanatra kinyitotta szemeit majd lehunyta ismét.

On the morning of June 3, 2007, shortly after the death of the famous actor Iván Darvas was announced on television, he was turning his back on an oncoming tram at the President St stop on a traffic island in Orczy Street, which,still having great momentum, whooshed just a few millimeters away from his left shoulder. For a moment, the boy froze at the thought of the close call..

Over the years he would recall this moment once in a while, wondering if he was still alive. Could it be possible that he had actually been killed by that tram, but because he was too afraid to admit that he was dead, he was still wandering in an in-between space pretending to be alive? 

On Sunday 7 April 2019, after lunch break, he returned to one of the hotel rooms to continue cleaning. Lunch and his first cigarette of the day always left him feeling a little way-out. It was a particularly chilly and drizzling Sunday. The window was left wide open throughout the lunch break, but the heater compensated for the incoming chill. He reached over to make the bed, when suddenly, from outside, in perfect clarity, came the unmistakable jungle cry of Tarzan. He stepped up to the window. Tarzan, alias Johnny Weissmuller, was dangling on the lianas hung between the buildings with their upper ends pinned above the horizon. And yes: the whole scenery was black and white. 

Everything that had happened up to that point in the day seemed completely real, so it was not at all reasonable to think he was dreaming. Yet that would have been one perfectly obvious explanation and, as usual, the next step would have been to wake up. But that was not what happened. He looked out of the window again and now Tarzan was racing across the dark pink sky between the skyscrapers of an unknown city, liana by liana, growing more and more desperate. A sense of the end of the world ran through the boy. He felt the time had come, the time to face what he couldn’t.  He turned to the door, but there was no door. Instead, a tunnel of swirling gray smoke. 

Try as he might, he couldn’t remember when he died. Just right now? Years before? He could not lift the veil off any related memories. He stood there, facing this vortex, feeling increasingly stronger gusts of wind against his face. 

It was the spring of 2023, the wind blew through the window of the train.

He opened his eyes for a moment, then he closed them again.

by Judit Hajdu

I started deliberately using the scenery while I was living – for twenty-five years – in a house overlooking the edge of the town and its surrounding hills. I sipped my morning tea looking out, preparing for the day with the view as backdrop, contemplated problems on the balcony, where I had most meals with family and friends. And that was the place I set off from to explore more expansive vistas and the people inhabiting them, as I was sure one would have very different views on life – sorry for the pun – depending on what you can rest your eyes on daily basis.

Robert Macfarlane in his book The Old Ways, where he recounts his many walks criss-crossing the British Isles, quotes Nan Shepherd who, through exchanges between her and her beloved mountains, the Scottish Cairngorm,  “understood herself in some way thought by place.” This notion is not difficult to imagine if we regard the word ‘landscape’, as Macfarlane does, “a noun with a hidden verb: landscape scapes, it is dynamic and commotion causing, it sculpts and shapes us not only over the courses of our lives but also instant by instant, incident by incident.”

Intuitively we have known for centuries that the colour green, the sight of flora and fauna all have calming effects and by now a whole new branch of enquiries, called environmental psychology, has been developed to study the phenomenon and how it can be utilised in city design. With the advance of neuroscience, we are beginning to understand the mechanism as well.

One theme, however, I yet to find contemplation or research on: the effect of not what but how far we can see and the interaction of the two. The joy of seeing the horizon, as one of the prisoners I worked with on the Hungarian prison radio put it: “Every day I wait with anticipation for the few steps in the walk down to our workplace. As we turn the corner, suddenly my eyes can escape and I with it to travel far-far across the river to the place where the mountains shed their cloaks of mist. I feel there is a chance for a new beginning.”

Bibliography:

Robert Macfarlane (2013), The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, Penguin.

Nan Shepherd (2011), The Living Mountain (Canons): A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland, Canongate Books Ltd, first published 1977.